ART BTEC 2015 intake!

Thursday, 17 December 2015

Studio shoots for your garments are arranged for the first day back - we have 4 photographers from the second year working with you, and studios 1 & 2 are both booked from 1.00pm until 2.30pm - this should allow time to get collection and individual shots for everyone. Make sure you have your garment, model, plus any make up or other clothing you need to set your piece off effectively.We will distribute edited shots from the shoots for use in your folios as soon as possible, but we won't expect to see these as part of your project submission.

The deadline for your Fashion work is Tuesday 5th January @ 4.30pm and this is the minimum you need to have in your sketchbooks:

Initial Research and Presentation:

Observational drawing/s of your object.

At least 2 busy pages of visual research into your garment, different versions/styles/shapes, try to find inventive Haute Couture versions.

Minimum 2 pages of visual research into your object - different versions, different uses, unusual applications of your object, if you can find examples of it in Fashion then include these.

2 pages where you find examples of Collections. Most designers/design houses release themed collections seasonally, look for examples of collections that are inventive, exuberant and perhaps use elements of recycling – for example the work of Martin Margiela.

Copies of your presentation slides.

Any notes relevant to your presentation.

Illustration and Design Development:

4 pages research into 2 Fashion Illustrators.

Your photos from the figure (the ones you used as a basis for your Fashion Illustrator responses).

4 Well finished Illustrator responses based on your photos.

6 garment proposals (with notes, using the templates).

A finished Illustration based on your best design - this should be developed independently and not based on an existing template. This might include sample pieces, annotations and colour swatches alongside.

Final Garment, Photography and Evaluation.

4 pages research into 2 Fashion Photographers.

Your finished garment/accessory.

A thoughtfully styled location shoot of your garment - be ambitious, think about the photographers whose work you have studied. Arrange model, location, props, make up. Consider posture and camera angle carefully. Take plenty of shots (20+) you might use PhotoShop to enhance your best shots for inclusion in your sketchbook.

Your word processed evaluation (see guidance notes below).

RECYCLED FASHION EVALUATION GUIDANCE

In order to pass this project you must complete a word processed evaluation of 500-800 words, discussing the following ……

What object and garment did you get to work with?

How did the development of your Presentation help in understanding the possibilities offered by your object. What sources did you access in researching your object and garment?

In what other ways did you respond to and investigate your object? (e.g. photography and drawing)

Who were you collaborating with? How did you share tasks? Do you think you communicated effectively together? Did you find this collaboration helpful?

Which designers/collections did you look at? What appealed to you about their work?

What did you learn from looking at the designer’s work? Did their work influence your own garment designs later in the project?

What were your first ideas for your garment design? Did these bear much relation to your final solution?

What was it that appealed to you about the fashion illustrators you chose to research and respond to?

What did you learn from recreating the styles of the illustrators you looked at, and how did this help you to understand the techniques employed in fashion illustration?

How did you go about creating your own fashion illustrations – what processes did you employ in developing your final images? Describe how you used photography to style them initially and what you did to get them to a high standard.

Which Fashion Photographers did you research? What appealed to you about their work?

Describe the process you went through to create your initial garment designs, and how you decided upon the one you chose to make.

What elements of your original garment did you retain and what was added/taken away?

What materials and techniques did you employ in the production of your final garment and what problems did you encounter along the way?

Discuss your final photoshoots, how did you style your garment? Mention aspects such as make up, props, location, models, postures, lighting, composition.

Do you feel your final garment will work well with your collaborators? Did you maintain good communication throughout the project?

What do you regard as the most and least successful aspects of your project?

How well did you manage your time and what you would do differently if you did this project again?

Friday, 4 December 2015

OK, so you should all be well underway with garment construction by now. Make sure you have the resources you need: as many multiples of your object as your garment requires and potentially a base garment to reconstruct/work over. You may need other things such as additional fabrics, dyes, zips, clasps, velcro etc.This weekend may be a good opportunity to shop for any bits that you are currently short of. If you have an ambitious plan it is essential to work in a focussed way to resolve it properly.In order to carry out Studio Photography before Christmas (see post below) it is essential that garments/accessories are fully finished by Monday 14th December. So the big aim next week is the completion of your making process. We will let you know precise times for the studio shoots soon - these may be outside normal lessons, dependent on availability of the Studios and the Photographers. Ideally we would like all items from each collection (e.g. All the Clothes Peg garments and accessories from across both groups) to be available for photography together - so you will need to try and obtain models (or model yourself) at the relevant times.Any finishing work to your illustration research/design development needs to be completed as self-directed study now. See previous posts for the sketchbook requirements up to this point.From now until the project is submitted (straight after the Christmas break) the things that need to be added to sketchbooks are:

Some photographic documentation of stages of your making process, with annotation/explanation.

Images from your studio photoshoot - these will need to be obtained from the second year photographers you will be working with.

Contact sheets and larger prints of the best images from a location shoot.

4 pages of research into 2 Fashion Photographers (see post below for guidance).

In the final week of term we will be arranging studio shoots with some of the second year students who are specialising in Fashion Photography - we will then get them to edit and distribute the best shots for you to include in your projects. It will be useful to ensure that you have a USB memory stick available to copy shots from the Photographers as hi-res PhotoShopped images are usually too large for sending via email or saving to your limited college network space.Thinking a little way ahead you should start giving some thought to your location Photoshoot - this could be completed over the Christmas break, but your planning should start now. You should be aiming for a professional approach with this that results in great imagery for your portfolio.Consider who will model for you (or who will take photos if you are modelling your own garment), where you will base the shoot (what will complement the garment?), will you need props/make up?

In order for you to plan and execute effective final Photoshoots for your garments it will be helpful to make yourself aware of the work of some top Fashion photographers.When looking at these Photographers work you should look for the following things and comment on them:

Use of location/studio - how does this relate to enhance the garment?

Use of make up.

Use of props.

Use of the model(s) consider things like body posture, what mood is the photographer trying to create?

Use of lighting - natural/artificial? harsh/gentle?

Composition/cropping - how is the figure placed within the image?

Use of post production - has the image been manipulated via software such as PhotoShop to achieve the final result, how subtle/dramatic is this process?

You should look at 2 of the following photographers and provide a little background biographical information before analysing at least 3 images by each one in detail (2 pages per photographer, print out decent size reproductions of their work).